Safe
by Cassandra Lange
Summary: An interlude during "Afterlife." A sorta cont'd of "The End of the World."


Safe  
  
*Note: I know this fic is totally late in coming, but well...better late than never. It's inspired by the 6th season "Afterlife" and though I've tweaked the dialogue and situations a bit, this stuff all still belongs to Joss Whedon. Thanks!  
  
"Dawn? Dawn! Are you there?" Prickles of what could almost be fear ran up and down his spine at the thought of losing the slayer's little sister. He slammed the door loudly and stopped at the foot of the stairs, searching. Thankfully, she called from upstairs.   
"I'm here!"  
"Thank God. You scared me half to death...or more to death. You...I could kill you." he fumed. She was giving him a strange look as she plodded carefully down the stairs.   
"Spike." Her voice was low and full of a meaning he couldn't quite comprehend.  
"I mean it. I could rip your head off one-handed and drink from your brain stem." He wouldn't of course, never. With his precious one gone, Dawn was his first and foremost priority. He stared angrily at her for a few seconds when he realized she was still looking at him in that odd way. Something was wrong.  
He waited, but all she said was, "Look." She turned and watched the descent of the robot down the stairs.  
"Yeah? I've seen the bloody bot before. Didn't think she'd patch up so..." He turned to look at the machine-image of his love and froze in mid-sentence. There was something in the bot's eyes, something different, something unquestionably human. Something unquestionably...Buffy.  
Dawn was speaking somewhere far off. "She's kind of, um...She's been through a lot... with the...death. But I think she's okay." Spike only vaguely heard her. All he could hear with his finely-honed vampiric senses was the melodius beating of the slayer's heart. Her heart. Beating. She was alive.   
Her movements were anxious, yet labored. He didn't trust himself to speak, but he managed to somehow, to answer Dawn's question as to whether he was all right. Of course. He was fine. He was perfect. He was excellent.  
He was lying.  
"Her hands," he finally noted. If he'd had a heart it would've broken at the sight of her bloodied and bruised hands. Dawn mumbled something again, and he managed to answer. Everything was a blur to him, even the magical sound of her first words to him. He couldn't focus. It was as if all his concentrative powers had vanished the moment he looked into her eyes and realized that it was really her.  
He shook his head slightly to clear it, for Dawn's sake, for her sake, and put out his arm to guide her into the living room. "Get some stuff." he told Dawn. "Uh, mercurochrome. Bandages."  
Dawn left and suddenly, they were alone. Spike sat on the coffee table, facing her. Unconsciously, he reached out and took her hands in his own, as if somehow, he might absorb the pain and take it away from her. Their eyes met and at that instant, Spike almost lost his control and cried. "How long was I gone?" Her soft voice cut through the film that was beginning to fall over him and wrenched him back to the reality of the room.  
His thumb ran absently over the back of her hand. His answer was quick, automatic. "Hundred forty-seven days yesterday. Uh...hundred forty-eight today." He tried to smile, to take control once again. " 'Cept today doesn't count, does it?"  
Her face was blank. He didn't know what to say, so he studied her hands again, and then, because he couldn't help himself, he looked up and asked, "How long was it for you...where you were?"  
Silence. Then, softly, "Longer."  
At that moment, Dawn appeared, holding a blue dishtowel and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, only about a quarter full. "Got the stuff. This was all I could find."  
She laid the materials on the coffee table, next to him. "Not enough," he said quietly. He looked again at the mess of Buffy's hands and he inwardly winced.  
"I...I could run out and get some more." Dawn offered. Her eyes flitted nervously to her stoic sister. "You just stay here...and take care of her."  
It was ludicrous, but he nodded, agreeing. Dawn needed to stay here, let him be the one to leave. Yet he couldn't bear to let go of Buffy's hands. He was physically unable to let go, to leave.  
A few moments later, he heard the back door open and shut. They were alone again. She reclaimed her hands from his grasp and stood up. He placed a hand on her thigh. "Buffy, sit. I'll take care of your hands, love."  
She resisted for only the briefest moment. Sitting back down on the couch, Spike began to tear the dishtowel into two even strips. "How..." Her voice was hesistant. Spike refused to look at her, and concentrated on the task at hand. "How are you doing?"  
"Good," he replied, in a voice that shook only a little. He gently swabbed her hands with the remaining alcohol then wrapped a strip around each hand to serve as temporary bandages.   
Once he was finished, there was nothing to do but wait for her sister to return. But Buffy was not content to simply sit. She stood again, and this time, Spike did nothing to stop her. She went towards the stairs and turning to look at him for only a split-second, she started up.   
He sighed and stood to follow her. By the time he was at the top of the stairs, she had the door to her old room open and was staring into the darkness at something even he couldn't see. Her stationary position halted him at the uppermost step, contemplative. They held their positions for what felt like an eternity before she spoke. "You remember that last night here." It was a statement, not a question.   
How could he possibly forget? She'd thrown caution to the wind and given him a gift so beautiful, so powerful, it bound him to her forever in gratitude. Even now, remembering how she'd allowed him to love her...a shiver raced over him.   
She was moving into her bedroom, not waiting for his reply. He moved to follow, but she stopped just inside the door, lost in thought again. The minute stretched into several, and Spike wondered if she weren't going into shock. "Buffy?" he ventured cautiously. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and felt it tense slightly.  
Slowly, but determinedly, she twisted around and gazed at him with burning eyes. "Make love to me." she commanded in a low voice that rung with conviction.  
"Buffy..." he breathed in a strangled whisper.   
Both of her hands were suddenly on his arms, their grip strong and resolved despite their bruising. "Do it." she said in the same tone.  
Because he was mortally weak where she was concerned, because she had been gone for one hundred forty-seven days of unbearable silence, because he'd wanted to do this same thing the moment he'd seen her descending the stairs and heard her heart beating, Spike bent down and scooped her up like a newly-wed bride and crossed into the room. With his foot, he kicked shut the door. He didn't want to risk Dawn coming home and hearing.  
They reached the bed and he tenderly set her down. She looked intently up at him, her eyes open and childishly expectant. The heat of her gaze unnerved him. Here was a girl who only a few hours ago was suffering in some intense hell. Should he treat her request as sane?  
He knew, though, that even when she'd been alive and well, that other time, it had still been insane. It had made no sense, it would never make any sense. It made no sense why he'd give his own preternatural unlife a thousand times over just so that this infant child would not have to feel the tiniest iota of pain. It made no sense why he was slowly undressing her, placing little butterfly kisses on each of her finely-toned shoulders.   
Buffy allowed Spike to take off her clothes. He was working so slowly, so afraid to hurt her. She wanted to laugh. The only place she was truly traumatized was her mind and her hands. And her hands he had seen to.   
From the instant she'd walked into the house, every sensation had been pain-filled. No, no, not pain; the illusion of pain, when in reality, she felt...nothing. It should have been painful. The light had been glaring. The sound of her sister's voice upset her delicate hearing. Every particle in the room had been charged with a destructive energy that had hurled itself at her and confused her. Wasn't it supposed to hurt? Why couldn't she feel...anything?   
The only semblance of sense she found was in Spike. Maybe it was because he was death personified. Looking at him did not fill her with an indescribable smothering feeling thjat consumed her when she looked at her younger sister. His voice did not grate on her senses like the sound of her own footsteps. He was a cold compress to her fevered brain. She had to have him closer.  
Spike cupped her face in his hands. "Slayer," he half-whispered, half-whimpered. His mouth descended on hers with infinite tenderness, but Buffy didn't want that.   
"No," she murmured against his lips. "More. I need more."  
Spike looked at her skeptically, but her eyes were closed and she didn't see. He slid his hands around her back and began caressing her bare skin. All she could feel was the sheer weight of him on top of her, still fully clothed. The feel of the fabric against her nakedness was invigorating, but inhibitive. "Your clothes," she rasped. "...off."  
He took his hands from her back and started to pull off his coat. "No, no." she protested weakly, eyes flying open. "Touch me. God, keep touching me."  
"Help me then," he said breathlessly as she pulled his hands back with surprising strength onto her breasts.  
She nodded quickly, a reflexive movement. With a single fluid movement, one hand slid up his shirt and ripped it straight through the middle. The other hand unzipped his pants and maneuvered them past his hips. All the time, Spike was kissing her, his normally cool lips hot with desire. His kiss branded her skin, making whichever portion he made contact with leap and come alive.   
"Baby," he moaned, over and over. His hands played expertly over her body, moving in rhythm with his lips. Under him, she squirmed and writhed, involuntarily joining his dance, feeling her lifeforce flowing back into her. His pace quickened, and Buffy wondered why he wasn't entering her. She was more than ready. She received her answer a heartbeat later when he inserted two fingers to test the moist center of her, to ascertain her body's willingness. "I won't hurt you needlessly, sweetness." he said softly into her ear.  
Her body gave an unbidden jerk at his probing fingers. "Whoa, not yet." he chuckled throatily. He patted her firm stomach, then licked his fingers. "Although you're ready."  
Blindly, she reached for his hand to replace it on her female core, but he was moving, adjusting their bodies. "Come inside me," she said brazenly. "Now. Now. NOW!"  
At that moment, he entered her, his maleness encroaching upon the crevice of her feminity with a punishing thrust. "Move," she ordered.  
Spike obeyed. He flexed his hips, and her softness tightened upon his rigidity. She was deliciously tight, as though she were once again an untouched virgin. Still, he fit her just about right and the friction of their wild dance - for she was bucking wildly up and down as well, holding onto him for support - was an amazing carnal pleasure, too extreme for description. Moans that escalated in loudness were issuing from her and Spike thought again about how she had fought her way out of her grave just scant hours ago.   
"Dammit, Spike, hurt me. Hurt me!" she screeched.  
He pushed harder, plunged deeper. He crushed the palms of his hands against her nipples, feeling their tiny hardness beneath his rough skin, and began to massage them in a circular motion. The slayer's fingernails dug into his thighs, injuring him, but he said nothing. This was therapeutic to her somehow. And it was a return to heaven for him.  
Buffy couldn't breathe. Spike was inside her, filling her. Feelings so acute, past the point of pain, seared throughout her body. Oh, yes, now she could feel. *Heaven?* she thought, semi-conscious. Spike's hands moved to cover her buttocks. Abruptly, he lifted her up to bring her ever more closer to that throbbing place that spoke of exactly how much he had missed her. An involuntary gasp escaped from her and with her next breath she voiced the companion thought, "Or hell?"  
Spike was drowsy with passion and her whisper only vaguely registered on his intoxicated senses. "Buffy, baby..." he groaned. In one part of his mind, he was thinking, *God, why can't I get her any closer?* But the other part of his mind, the one fighting to be heard, was screaming, *What are you doing to her, you bloody fool?*   
Yet they continued their feverish movements until, suddenly, at the same time, they froze. For an instant, Buffy thought she was again in death's embrace, it was so silent. Then, as they both came in a rush of pure physical passion, she realized she was - she was in Spike's arms.  
Despite his promise not to hurt her, Spike slumped over Buffy's body, completely spent. God, she was amazing. His body had responded to her with such violence even he'd never thought he possessed. Beneath him, she was breathing heavily. He could feel the labored rising of her chest. With great resolve, he managed to push himself off her and to the side of the bed.   
"No," she whimpered. "Please, no..."  
Unseeingly, because her eyes were tightly shut, she felt for his hands. When she couldn't find them, her whimpering became louder, more child-like and desperate. Confusedly Spike watched her fevered searching for a few more seconds before placing a hand on her cheek. Immediately, the strangled little sounds stopped and were replaced by a contented sigh. Still incredibly confused, Spike slid nearer, placing his other hand on the opposite cheek. "Hmmm..." was her response. "Yes. Keep touching me."  
He ran his hands down to her throat, her breasts, her stomach. Her eyes flew open. There was a hunger there, an hunger unnameable even to him. "Love me again," she pleaded without actually pleading.  
Spike was incredulous. His hands stopped their baffled roaming over her body, coming to rest on her creamy thighs. "Love, I may be one of the undead, but even I can't go all night. Especially not after a job like that." he said, the note of levity in his voice tempered by his underlying concern for the strangeness of her requests.   
She bolted upright then, grabbing his hands from her thighs and placing them at the apex of her feminity just above. Spike was taken aback by her unexpected behavior, but more so by the undisguised craving in her eyes. "Do what you have to do," she said in a low voice.  
For a moment all he could do was stare. "Buffy..." he was finally able to say. He reached up and brushed away a stray lock of hair.   
"Oh, dammit, just take me!" she hollered.  
She was serious. Without thinking, Spike pried apart her legs. The velvety axis of her was displayed before him, still wet and warm from their previous encounter. He bent his head and tasted its richness.  
"Yesssss," she hissed. Her knees came together on either side of his head to hold him in place.   
His tongue entered and exited, leapt and fluttered, prodded and parried. Drunk on sensation, her fingers explored the platinum of his head, curled around the strands of his bleached hair, wrenched him deeper inside. She never wanted him to stop. If he ended now, she was sure she would die, die of sensory deprivation, of the numbness that incapacitated her when he'd left her a few seconds ago.  
Spike spooned her up so he could drink ever more deeply from her feminine core. The emotion was heady like poignant wine. She tasted of blood, of honey, uniquely slayer and human together. She tasted of life.  
Her legs kicked out convulsively. She felt the gathering of a storm within her. It was delicious. Delirious. Alive.  
All he was aware of was himself and the slayer, locked in a primordial embrace.  
A deep, throaty scream erupted from her above him and abruptly, her legs went slack and fell away. He rose, taking his time, watching her convulse for a few moments, sweat glittering over her velvety skin. "Inside," she gasped. "Hurt me." Her breaths came in staccato little bursts and she could barely speak. But she had to. She had to make him understand what she wanted - needed. Him inside of her, sealed within her, mutual possession.  
He plunged into her, deep, her flowered perfection closing tightly over his male essence. The storm built for the space of a single heartbeat - whose, Buffy could not tell, because who was the one who was truly dead in this coupling? - and broke, radiant, splendid, a million fires ignited and extinguished all at once. Buffy's back arched, her breathing reached a harried crescendo as she bucked violently about and Spike had to hold her steady for fear she'd die - again - of lack of air. Powerful arms locked around her and it felt as though he could physically keep death from stealing her once more. After all, who better to stop the dark angel from claiming her as his bride a second time than darkness personified? The thought almost made Buffy want to laugh. She had traded one demonic wedding bed for another. Another breath was sucked in and then, she was still, her breathing slowly regaining its natural, though still harsh, rhythm.  
As she slowly regained awareness, she found herself cradled against Spike's silent chest, his face buried against the top of her head. She felt safe, loved even. The haze of the afterlife remained, but somehow, its frightful nature had dissipated slightly. Her hand rose to stroke his cheek. It was cold. The chill of death. How could it be comforting?   
His head moved so he could look at her. Even in the darkness, she could see the thousand and one emotions that flitted across his eyes. Shock. Confusion. Joy. Relief. Anger, even, but not at her. The prevailing emotion though was one that she wasn't sure she was all that comfortable with - determination. His face was set into a hard mask of conviction, a look she remembered from his days of destruction and carnage. What was he thinking?  
She shifted, moving out of the protective circle of his arms. She wanted to say something, mumble some form of thanks, but the words would not come. She was thankful, so very thankful. He'd given her fortitude, strength when she had so desperately required it and he would never know it. She sat for a moment, contemplating nothing, turning her back to her recently discarded lover. Her toes touched the floor on the side of the bed. Spike was still behind her, watching, waiting. "No one will know," he whispered, as if reading her mind.  
"No. No one." she agreed.  
The bedsprings creaked and he was suddenly in front her, dressed. He slowly began putting her clothes on for her. Without so much as a whimper of protest, Buffy allowed him to. This was important to Spike. And the cold of his hands - they were slowly rubbing reason back into her fevered yet frozen body.  
When he was finished, he ran a finger over her cheek. He stared at her, his gift from the beyond. Her eyes were glazed over. Her skin felt baby soft beneath his fingertips and her smell...it was driving him crazy again. He removed his fingers from her body, knowing that any further contact would drive him over the brink.  
"You okay?" he asked in a whisper that was harsher than it should have been. He ran his knuckle across her cheek to soften the edge of his voice and was sorry he did - her skin on his skin was courting insanity. His hand was retracted as though from a fire.  
A slow nod. Standing up, steeling her small shoulders - such small shoulders, had they always been that small? - against the cruel, cruel world. Her head tilted back and he caught a glimpse of...what? His Buffy. The Buffy before...everything.   
He grasped her shoulders impulsively and kissed her on the forehead with something like pride and affection mixed together. "I'll never tell." he promised.  
She bit her lip, making her look like a lost little girl for a split second, but the moment passed and Buffy returned. A Buffy shaken and dazed by death, but Buffy nonetheless. "I know," she murmured. She moved past him towards the stairs. Willow's voice could be heard, a little too loud, but expectant. "Is she here?" Buffy gave him one last, lingering look. The time for conversation was over. With great tenderness, she leaned forward and brushed a light kiss on his lips. In the very next instant, she was gone, down the stairs.  
Spike hoped he had helped ease her homecoming somehow. He hoped this time around he could keep her safe. At least they both knew now where the safest place for Buffy was - in his arms. And that was a victory in itself.  
He started down the stairs. 


End file.
